The Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65, by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in the summer of 1943, and first performed on 4 November of that year by the USSR Symphony Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky, to whom the work is dedicated. It briefly was...

Villa-Lobos composed his Ninth Symphony in Rio de Janeiro in 1952. It was first performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormandy. The score is dedicated to Mindinha (Arminda Neves d'Almeida), the composer's companion for the last 23...